


What We Never Were, and Cannot Be Again

by Jadzibelle



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag: 1.05 Ball and Chain, Gen, Implied Duke pining over Nathan, Implied Nathan pining over Duke, Introspection, Pining, Reflections on family, Silent Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2688989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzibelle/pseuds/Jadzibelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan, Duke, and Audrey reflect on the events of episode 1.05, Ball and Chain.<br/>Nathan wants things he can never have; Duke has things he never wanted; Audrey wonders what it's like to want, and be wanted.<br/>Melancholy musings brought on by new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Never Were, and Cannot Be Again

Nathan holds Duke’s daughter in his arms, cradling her to his chest, and he aches.  It’s a hollow sort of feeling, because he knows he should feel it, knows it should bring with it a tightness in his chest, a rawness at the back of his throat, but it doesn’t; it can’t.  Instead, it just aches, empty and unrewarding.

Jean is beautiful, even wrinkled and pink and newborn-shaped.  She’ll have her father’s eyes, when she’s older, and maybe his artless smile, and she’ll break hearts, just like Duke does.  She’ll be bold, she’ll be fearless and fierce, her father’s daughter, and Nathan wants her so badly he’s breaking apart.  He wants to watch her grow, wants to see her take her first steps, wants to hear her first words.  Wants to braid her hair if she grows it long, or toy with her curls if she cuts it short, wants to sing her to sleep every night until she’s too old for it, until she’s embarrassed by the ritual.

He wants her because she’s beautiful, and because she’s Duke’s, and Duke has always had so little and yet everything Nathan wants and can’t have.  Envy isn’t a strong enough word- there is no word for it.  Nathan knows; he’s tried them all.  None of them can describe the brilliant fury that is the force of his desire, the way he wants Duke and hates him.

Duke asked if he hated him; Nathan’s reply had been a lie in the form of a truth, and a truth in the form of a lie.  Hate was a strong word, yes- but not strong enough.

Jean wriggles, and Nathan coos at her, takes this one moment to pretend.  To imagine the life he doesn’t have, and never will.  A life where he can have the things he wants, where he can raise a child with her father’s eyes and smile and curls, where he can feel the sun and a stolen kiss and the delicate weight of a baby in his arms.

But it’s not his life, it never will be, and Audrey is there to hand Jean off to someone who will take her away, away from Haven and the Troubles and the father she’d kill if he ever tried to be there for her.

Nathan asks if they should tell Duke about the baby, and Audrey doesn’t know.

“He’s not exactly father material,” Nathan says, and it’s true, and a lie.

“But apparently you are,” Audrey replies, and Nathan looks away, accepts her gentle teasing and tries to cement the memory of Duke’s daughter into his mind.

It’s the only place, after all, that he’ll ever have what he wants.

***  
  


Duke stares at Audrey, and doesn’t hear a word she’s saying.  Well, he does, he hears her, he answers her, he manages a pretense of conversation, but his mind is a blank.

He has a daughter.

He has a daughter he cannot see, cannot hold, cannot raise, and he had always sworn he wouldn’t do that.  He’d always sworn he wouldn’t make that mistake, wouldn’t have a child he couldn’t raise, because he’d been that child, and he’d never, ever wanted to turn that around, pass on that legacy.

He has a daughter, and he wants her, and he’ll never know her.

“That’s nice.  Y’know, I think I’m just gonna go- check on the food.”  He pushes away from the table, walks away in a fog.  He feels numb.  Feels empty.  Wonders if it would have been worth dying, to have the chance to hold her just once.

Outside, past the window, Nathan gets out of his Bronco, and Duke is both surprised, and not.  They’ve always been complicated, him and Nathan, and Duke has never been able to figure out what Nathan wants from him.  Some days, he thinks it’s worth the risk to push him to breaking just to find out.  Most days, he’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t want to see how that plays out.

He goes to the door, opens it, and Nathan stares at him.  Looks at him like he’s the last oasis in the desert, vulnerable and hopeful and wretched, and Duke can’t help the smile, bitter and genuine and never enough, that rises in response.  Nathan stares at him, and Duke stares back, and no words are spoken; they don’t need them, or they can’t find them, or the words don’t exist to frame the conversation that they have.

Nathan breaks first; he always does.  Drops his gaze, and his posture changes, angry and defeated and defiant, and he turns, heads back to his car too fast to be anything but running away, but too slow to actually run.  Duke watches him go, breaking apart just a little bit more, the echo of Nathan’s voice calling his name and pleading with him to stay mocking him, because Duke stayed, but Nathan won’t.

He never does.

***

Audrey stares out over the water, at the lighthouse in the distance, and thinks of a woman who wanted a family so badly she made herself a siren just to have one.  Thinks of Nathan, stoic and strong and utterly vanquished by the mere presence of an infant.  Thinks of Duke, and the silences he couldn’t fill, the wonder and horror she’d seen in his eyes when he looked at the picture of Jean.

She wonders what her mother was like, whether she was desperate for a child or brave enough to let one go.  She wonders about her father, if he would have cuddled and cooed and cradled her in his arms, or if he would have been terrified and guilty and awestruck by her mere existence.  She wonders if anyone ever wanted her the way Beatrice and Nathan and Duke wanted Jean.

She thought it must be selfish to hope that they had.  She thought it must be selfish to want, someday, to feel that way herself.  To want someone so desperately, so bravely, so pitifully, so wretchedly.

Jean will have a good life, with a good family.  Audrey could be sure of that, had made sure of that, with Abby’s help.  She’d grow up knowing she was wanted, knowing she was loved.  Knowing she would never be alone.  And probably never knowing how badly she’ll be missed.

Audrey stares out over the water, at the lighthouse in the distance, and thinks of the woman Jean will become.


End file.
